One of The New York Times articles about Vancouver Olympic impressed me. The name of article was “Defying Injury, Vonn Wins Gold in Downhill,” and it was about a gold medaler of women’s alpine ski and her rival. The article stated how Gold Medaler Lindsey Vonn overcame a injury on her shin and her husband’s support with various photographs.
Lindsey Vonn, right and Julia Mancuso, her long-time rival, left. Photo courtesy The New York Times
I always wondered if sports writing could be superior to sports broadcasting. The reason I have though is that a moving image clearly showed a essense of sports that is playing on fields. Without doubt, it is easy and effective way to watch sports on TV or on the actual spots. But now I found two aspects of sports writing can excel sports broadcasting: background stories and the power of photos.
Background stories help readers understand who players are and how they have made efforts for the Olympic. This news article by The New York Times included not only the result of competition but also the background story how Vonn and Julia Mancuso, her long-time rival, competed each other since their 12-year-old. Also, the article said that Thomas Vonn, her husband, supported Lindsey as a coach and adviser. These stories may shake human feelings. In this sense, sports writing can compete with its broadcasting because I’m pretty sure writing can make siginificant tones on readers.
As well as background stories, photographs has an important meaning to describe sports event. Even if readers could figure out how Lindsey Vonn have made effort and eventually got a gold medal in the written story, they cannot imagine how she looked like and how she showed her pleasure after getting the medal. In addition, multi-meida version of story telling may be more efffective to make readers get the points better because hese slide shows are story-telling style. Consequently, photographers can both cut one scene off and join each photos to make a story. This is an important way to drag readers into sports world.
Of course, sports broadcasting may stay as a principal of sports journalism, but I found sports writing can express the other side of sports.
